humor – Hot Airhttp://hotair.com
The world’s first, full-service conservative Internet broadcast networkFri, 09 Dec 2016 15:01:00 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.116302432Video: The obligatory “Watters World in Chinatown” cliphttp://hotair.com/archives/2016/10/05/video-obligatory-watters-world-chinatown-clip/
Wed, 05 Oct 2016 21:31:06 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=3925678The media is treating it as a hate crime but the greatest offense is to comedy, I think. If you’re going to play with racial stereotypes, why would you do it for gags this lame?

The next four interviews are just interviews, featuring several different viewpoints. Then Watters’ true colors start to shine as he uses an elderly woman who appears not to speak English. Rather than leaving that interview out, we get Madeline Kahn from “Young Frankenstein” shouting, “Speak! Speak! Why won’t you speak?” Americans do sometimes think the key to overcoming language barriers is to talk more loudly, but I don’t think that’s the joke Watters was going for there.

Next up, it’s another person who seems to be a non-English speaker. Watters uses this man to interject some cricket sounds before asking if it’s the Year of the Dragon. Since the man still doesn’t understand him, he asks if it’s the Year of the Rabbit. Because it’s fun to say random things to people who can’t understand you.

When you’re playing to an audience with a median age of 72, I guess asking random Asian guys “Do you know karate?” gets the job done humor-wise. Imagine Megyn Kelly pondering her future knowing that her show is sandwiched between tackiness like this and the Trump Hour of Power at 10 p.m. Make room, CNN.

]]>3925678Hillary Clinton blames ‘CPT’ skit on DeBlasiohttp://hotair.com/archives/2016/04/13/hillary-clinton-blames-cpt-skit-on-deblasio/
Wed, 13 Apr 2016 17:21:19 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=3901000Remember that awful, awkward comedy skit that Hillary Clinton and Mayor DeBlasio did at a New York dinner over the weekend, the one where they made a joke about CPT, i.e. colored people’s time? Clinton has actually faced some backlash over that, enough that she was asked about it by Cosmopolitan magazine in an interview published yesterday:

Some people have been upset by a racially charged joke that you and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio made over the weekend, especially in context of a recent altercation between Bill Clinton and Black Lives Matter supporters. Upon hearing the criticisms, do you think the joke was inappropriate or, as Mayor de Blasio said, are people “missing the point”?

Well, look, it was Mayor de Blasio’s skit. He has addressed it, and I will really defer to him because it is something that he’s already talked about.

It’s encouraging to see Clinton was actually asked about this, but her answer completely passes the buck. Some possible follow up questions Cosmopolitan didn’t ask: In what sense was this DeBlasio’s skit? Did he write it? Even if DeBlasio wrote it, didn’t you, Hillary, read it, agreed to do it and then go on stage and read the lines? Doesn’t that make you responsible? If a GOP candidate decided to go on stage in black face, would it be reasonable to blame the make-up artist?

As for DeBlasio, it’s true that he has talked about this. He told CNN, “It was clearly a staged show. It was a scripted show. The whole idea was to do the counterintuitive by saying ‘cautious politician time.’ Every actor thought it was a joke on a different convention. That was the whole idea. I think people are missing the point here.”

DeBlasio’s answer makes it sound as if people are somehow missing the joke and, by explaining it, he is eliminating any reason to object to it. In fact, all he has done is confirm (as I wrote here) that this was scripted and that it was indeed a reference to “a different convention,” i.e. a racial stereotype known as colored people’s time. In other words, it was exactly what the critics thought it was. DeBlasio’s explanation doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

Perhaps that’s why DeBlasio’s office subsequently released an apologetic statement saying, “In an evening of satire, the only person this was meant to mock was the mayor himself, period. Certainly no one intended to offend anyone.” Translation: He wasn’t making fun of black people he was making fun of himself. DeBlasio’s wife is black so maybe he thought that gave him some leeway to make the joke. Maybe it does.

What’s Hillary Clinton’s excuse?

For the record, what I wrote before about this topic remains true. This was a joke and probably no one at the event was truly offended by it. That said, the hypocrisy and double standard on display are galling to behold. Had a GOP candidate done this it would be dominating the headlines until a sufficiently obsequious apology had been offered. In Clinton’s case, someone finally dared to ask her about this and she brushed it off. There was no eagerness to really pin her down. Finally, you have to laugh at the sight of Hillary Clinton, the smart, qualified, feminist ready to lead the world telling a reporter: ask the guy I was with, he was responsible for all of my actions.

]]>3901000You probably don’t want to know how your nurses talk about youhttp://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/10/you-probably-dont-want-to-know-how-your-nurses-talk-about-you/
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/10/you-probably-dont-want-to-know-how-your-nurses-talk-about-you/#commentsWed, 10 Jun 2015 22:01:38 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=3865872Some recent events on the personal front have reminded me once again of a bit of friction which occasionally takes place in hospitals between the staff and patients. It’s not limited to medical situations by any means, but it seems to be the most raw in cases such as that. There are occasions where visitors – or even the patients themselves – will inadvertently catch wind of some of the comments and jokes that the nurses and doctors make at times and they likely won’t much care for them. Along with other, high stress positions, medical professionals can have a tendency towards some particularly gruesome gallows humor at times.

I was reminded of this back in April when Alexandra Robbins published an article entitled, Nurses Make Fun of their Dying Patients. That’s okay. The title alone is a little rough on the reader right out of the gate, but the meat of the essay isn’t nearly as dire or insulting as it sounds.

Although patients typically don’t overhear it, a surprising amount of backstage joking goes on in hospitals — and the humor can be dark. Doctors and nurses may refer to dying patients as “circling the drain,” “heading to the ECU” (the eternal care unit) or “approaching room temperature.” Some staff members call the geriatric ward “the departure lounge.” Gunshot wound? “Acute lead poisoning.” Patient death? “Celestial transfer.”

“Laypeople would think I’m the most awful human being in the world if they could hear my mouth during a Code Blue,” Lauren told me when I was reporting my new book on nursing. (I agreed to use only her first name, so she could speak freely about behind-the-scenes hospital life.)

Indeed, while people may readily excuse gallows humor among, say, soldiers at war, they may have a lower tolerance for it among health-care professionals. “Derogatory and cynical humour as displayed by medical personnel are forms of verbal abuse, disrespect and the dehumanisation of their patients and themselves,” Johns Hopkins University professor emeritus Ronald Berk contended in the journal Medical Education. “Those individuals who are the most vulnerable and powerless in the clinical environment … have become the targets of the abuse.”

I strongly disagree. The primary objections to gallows and derogatory humor in hospitals are that it indicates a lack of caring, represents an abuse of power and trust, and may compromise medical care. But in my reporting, I found that nurses who use this humor care deeply about their patients and aren’t interested in abusing their power. Their humor serves to rejuvenate them and bond them to their teams, while helping to produce high-quality work.

I understand what the author is getting at, and possibly a bit more than some of the readers who argued with her ferociously after the piece was published. That’s likely because I grew up with an older sister who worked her entire life as a nurse and was full of stories, jokes and horrendous tales of the ER and – far worse – life in a preemie nursery in the seventies when the mortality rate for the infants was still terribly high.

I’m not dismissing the hurt feelings, complaints or even shock of patients who overhear such things as described in the article above. Some of what commonly passes for humor in the nurses’ lounge would put the most cynical listener off their feed. And the patients and families under their care are frequently there during one of the worst periods of their life, with anxiety, stress and the pressure of potentially dealing with imminent mortality hanging over their heads. When the staff lets go with some of these patently callous sounding comments where there’s any chance of a patient hearing them, something has gone wrong.

But I can still excuse them. Military men, relief workers, cops and firemen all face similar professional challenges to varying degrees and they mostly tend to develop a penchant for such gallows humor. It’s rather hard to avoid. Returning to my personal experience on that, I recall my sister going through an extended period where she was depressed and could barely leave the house at times. She was dealing with tiny, premature babies dying on a weekly, if not daily basis. That would have to get to anyone after a while. But she eventually adjusted and, yes, she began to take on some of that off putting humor which her profession exhibits on a regular basis.

The bottom line is you’ll find this with cops (we have several in our family) as well as other first responders and pretty much anyone who has to deal with tragedy on a regular basis. It may sound cold and heartless, but I think we owe it to them to cut them some slack and understand a bit of their world. (Though, again, they should certainly keep it away from the patients.) Sometimes awful humor is the only way to cut through the fog of horrible things which they are faced with on a daily basis.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/10/you-probably-dont-want-to-know-how-your-nurses-talk-about-you/feed/653865872Video: Reason TV’s exclusive Obama interviewhttp://hotair.com/archives/2015/04/01/video-reason-tvs-exclusive-obama-interview/
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/04/01/video-reason-tvs-exclusive-obama-interview/#commentsWed, 01 Apr 2015 12:31:35 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=3788556“Groundbreaking.” “Fearless.” “Roasted lame duck.” That’s how the critics will be describing Reason TV’s exclusive interview with Barack Obama, in which the second-term president gives the most cogent and honest explanation of his economic plan ever. Nick Gillespie asks the hard-hitting questions and forces Obama to stop the spin. Plus, Joe Biden gets a chance to explain how the Office of Management and Budget works in the Obama administration, and coincidentally how he’ll have a recount conducted when Hillary Clinton beats him in caucus states during the 2016 primary season:

Stay tuned, because one year from today, Hot Air has been promised an exclusive interview with Hillary herself. We’ll ask about the rumor that Harry Reid will be her first choice as Attorney General, and much much more.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2015/04/01/video-reason-tvs-exclusive-obama-interview/feed/193788556A look inside “progressive comedy” at Netroots Nation 2014http://hotair.com/archives/2014/07/20/a-look-inside-progressive-comedy-at-netroots-nation-2014/
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/07/20/a-look-inside-progressive-comedy-at-netroots-nation-2014/#commentsSun, 20 Jul 2014 16:31:35 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=440506This year’s edition of Netroots Nation (the supposed liberal answer to CPAC) kicked off this week, in case you hadn’t heard. (And judging by the massive lack of media coverage, you might not have.) To be honest, I have not idea what was going on at the various panels and speeches, aside from the apparently well received socialist stemwinder from Elizabeth Warren. But there was, it seems, one get together which was a real hoot, whether intentionally or not. It was a seminar called (wait for it) … Only the Jester Speaks the Truth and it was all about the importance of liberal comedy and why they need to be funnier than conservatives. A brief taste of the description.

The Left is supposed to be funnier than the Right, damn it.

So why do we so often sound in public like we’re stiltedly reading from a non-profit grant proposal?

This panel hopes to explore humor’s unparalleled ability to deliver challenging information to the public, as well as mold and shift perspectives.

Wow. That’s hilarious. I’m nearly doubled over with laughter already. But for those of us who were unable to make it, Jon Gabriel (better known as @exjon on the Twitterz) infiltrated the hive mind and brought us a report on this important progressive comedy summit.

This defensive tone was apparent throughout the hour-plus session, brought up repeatedly by speakers and audience members. Much like a co-worker who doesn’t get anyone’s jokes but insists, “I have a great sense of humor!”

After futzing with computers for 10 minutes, the panel’s four comedians showed highlight reels, with one apologizing for the lack of audience laughs. (Her show was made for the web, you see, so it doesn’t have cues for laughter like television does.)

The crowd was most pleased with Russia Today’s Lee Camp, whose video mocked America’s regressive attitude on gays and oil drilling without noting he gets his paychecks from Vladimir Putin.

“Comedy creates oneness and that is what our side wants,” according to Julianna Forlano, host of a news parody without laughter cues called “Absurdity Today.” She noted how her stand-up performance even created “oneness” at a Pennsylvania Elks Lodge, despite the crowd being filled with racist men (you could tell they were racist from the animal heads displayed on the walls).

Jon’s full coverage is brilliant satire and could almost make you wish you’d been there for the uncomfortable, awkward silence filled spectacle. (Well, I did say “almost”) But I’ll offer up this question for your weekend consideration. Are conservative comics really more funny than blatantly liberal ones? And if so, are they really more funny in an objective way or is it just that we agree more with the points they’re making? Ron White is probably about the funniest comic I can think of who is working today, and he’s definitely conservative. But a couple of his partners – such as Larry the Cable Guy – really don’t do that much for me. But by the same token, I find Chris Hardwick (also known as the Nerdist) to be hilarious in most of his work, but if you listen to his podcast, he’s probably about as liberal as they come.

In the end, I think comedy is in the eye of the beholder. A really talented, funny comic can deliver the goods no matter the ideological bent of their material. Of course, the easiest route is probably to avoid political comedy in the first place. Jim Gaffigan is a great example of that. I’m sure you can think of others.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2014/07/20/a-look-inside-progressive-comedy-at-netroots-nation-2014/feed/64440506Germany’s version of The Daily Show lampoons their failed green-energy transitionhttp://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/10/germanys-version-of-the-daily-show-lampoons-their-failed-green-energy-transition/
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/10/germanys-version-of-the-daily-show-lampoons-their-failed-green-energy-transition/#commentsSat, 10 May 2014 23:01:48 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=307683Via James Delingpole at Breitbart and the folks at the American Interest, this is a few weeks old by now but certainly worth a [joyless] chuckle or two. A few years ago, Germany decided to phase themselves off of nuclear energy while transitioning to a more wind-and-solar-centric energy grid — a so-called Energiewende that was supposed to set a pioneering green example for the rest of the world. Germans have now invested quite a bit of money into that endeavor through subsidies and state-mandated scheming, but all they have to show for it is an increased reliance on coal and higher energy prices hindering their economic opportunities. The jokes practically write themselves (language warning):

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/10/germanys-version-of-the-daily-show-lampoons-their-failed-green-energy-transition/feed/39307683Quotes of the dayhttp://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/04/quotes-of-the-day-1634/
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/04/quotes-of-the-day-1634/#commentsWed, 05 Feb 2014 03:41:26 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=296168At the height of Seinfeld’s popularity, the NBC comedy was repeatedly accused of presenting an exclusively “white” view of its diverse New York City setting. During Jerry Seinfeld’s BuzzFeed Brews with CBS This Morning interview on Monday, BuzzFeed Business Editor Peter Lauria asked about the enduring criticism, which has carried over to his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee web series. The Crackle docu-comedy featured white male performers (like Larry David, Ricky Gervais, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Richards) in the first batch of episodes, but later included Sarah Silverman and Tina Fey.

“People think it’s the census or something,” Seinfeld said of the assertion that all pop culture should accurately reflect society. “This has gotta represent the actual pie chart of America? Who cares? Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested. I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that.”

***

Needless to say, the scoldosphere didn’t disappoint. Here’s Gawker’s Kyle Chayka, at 9:23 p.m.: “Jerry Seinfeld, the most successful comedian in the world and maker of comedy for and about white people, isn’t interested in trying to include non-white anything in his work.” Here’s Vulture’s Halle Kiefer at 12:57 this morning: “Jerry Seinfeld wanted to clarify that he really, really does not give a tiny rat’s behind about the issue of racial or gender diversity in comedy.”…

The nice thing about the PC scolds is how remarkably predictable they are. The scary thing about the PC scolds is how many of them there are and how willing they are to simply regurgitate nonsense concocted by the ringmasters of the three-ring circus that is the modern left.

***

As the comedy-world blog Splitsider explains, people are upset not because Seinfeld prioritizes humor over diversity, but that he’s saying — given the existence of funny people from a wide variety of backgrounds — that it’s “P.C. nonsense” to give any thought to the message sent by highlighting mostly white men. The very response to his statement, and to the whole recent history of diversity in comedy, shows that he’d do well to give it more weight. Even if he is being purely meritocratic, some comedians have already noted that the system doesn’t necessarily give all voices a shot, whether those exclusions are deliberate or the product of institutional factors. And, because that conversation started before Seinfeld got into it, his deciding to ignore it can’t make it go away.

It’s possible that Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee won’t drive conversation for long enough to have an impact, but if the issue stays in the spotlight, Seinfeld’s perspective will lose. A continued lack of diversity on his show would prove his detractors’ point — and make him look racist and sexist, even if he’s merely failing to actively think about matters of race and sex — while increased diversity would seem to acknowledge that the “nonsense” isn’t so nonsensical at all. There’s no longer a way for a prominent comedian with Seinfeld’s level of influence to be so glib about the issue — especially given that of his 26 guests, only 2 have been women and another 2 have been non-white. (There have been no minority women guests so far.)

***

“He seems to suggest that any comedian who is not a white male is also not funny,” Chayka asserted, based on nothing more than his own passionate belief in the inherent necessity of gender and race-based quotas.

“Which is too bad,” Chayka continued ill-advisedly, “because Seinfeld is downplaying the work of everyone from Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby to Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, and Eddie Huang, who are all in various stages of their own sitcoms that just might turn out to be the next Seinfeld.”

Surely, Chayka researched this post before he went off on a tear. He must know that Seinfeld called Pryor “the Picasso of our profession,” or that he hosted an event honoring Cosby and called himself “not that funny” by comparison, or that Ansari regularly joins Seinfeld’s exclusive inner circle of comedians. Et cetera, et cetera.

In fact, there are few working comedians who do not have a story to tell about how Seinfeld and his encouraging cohorts aided in the development of their careers.

***

The idea behind diversity is not that everyone gets their fair share of the Jerry Seinfeld webisode pie, it’s that theoretically, if we’re choosing comics based on their relative merit, the natural result should roughly approximate the diversity of the field and, if it doesn’t, maybe there’s a reason for that. The “quota” isn’t the object of the exercise, it is one measurement of it. It’s something to think about, and if Jerry Seinfeld did think about it, there is no way he would conclude that there are only two black comics worth getting coffee with, or one female comic. He would conclude that, for whatever reason, he missed something.

Instead, though, Seinfeld makes the choice not to think about it, and not to care about it, because the mere observation equals accusation, and thinking about it, discussing it, equals an admission.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/04/quotes-of-the-day-1634/feed/375296168Brutal: SNL lampoons Obama’s second-term troubleshttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/18/brutal-snl-lampoons-obamas-second-term-troubles/
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/18/brutal-snl-lampoons-obamas-second-term-troubles/#commentsMon, 18 Nov 2013 14:21:25 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=287606There are almost too many piquant lines in this less than two-minute pharmaceutical commercial sketch to choose from, among them: “You’ll feel like you’re giving a speech at a college campus in 2008 or getting bin Laden, all over again!” and “Warning: Paxil is not covered by Obamacare. We promised that it would be, but it’s not. And for that, we apologize.” …Ouch. Of course, they had to include to obligatory last-minute shot at Republicans tacked on at the end, but the cameo by Bill Clinton with his oh-so-unhelpful comments from last week really takes the cake:

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/18/brutal-snl-lampoons-obamas-second-term-troubles/feed/64287606Revealed: Area 51 — It does existhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/16/revealed-area-51-it-does-exist/
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/16/revealed-area-51-it-does-exist/#commentsFri, 16 Aug 2013 20:01:30 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=275086It’s a real news desert out there today, so here’s a fun and Friday-worthy post for any self-declared space nerds in the audience. The mysteriously fenced-off and airspace-restricted area of land about 125 miles north of Las Vegas known as Area 51, a top-secretive government compound nearby a military base — long thought among certain circles to potentially contain answers to that age-old question, “Are we alone in the universe?” — has finally been officially acknowledged by the federal government.

In what will surely be a disappointment for conspiracy theorists everywhere, however, the newly disclosed information about what’s really inside the parcel of land is… well… kind of a letdown. CNN reports on the recently released CIA documents:

According to these reports, which include a map of the base’s location in Nevada, Area 51 was merely a testing site for the government’s U-2 and OXCART aerial surveillance programs. The U-2 program conducted surveillance around the world, including over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. …

This information will be disappointing to some, who have come to view the area has been a mecca of sorts for alien encounters. …

The map and other documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow at the National Security Archives, in 2005.

Richelson submitted the request as part of his continuing study of aerial surveillance programs and told CNN that he was not given an explanation of why the new documents were less redacted than previous versions declassified by the agency.

So, in the end, after all of the folklore and pop culture references about aliens and unidentified flying objects and creepy extraterrestrial experiments, it turns out that Area 51 really has just been your typical Cold-War era military and technological testing ground all along.

…Or has it?!?!

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2013/08/16/revealed-area-51-it-does-exist/feed/70275086U.S. embassy in Cairo restores their Twitter feed after Jon Stewart snafu with Egypthttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/03/u-s-embassy-in-cairo-restores-their-twitter-feed-after-jon-stewart-snafu-with-egypt/
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/03/u-s-embassy-in-cairo-restores-their-twitter-feed-after-jon-stewart-snafu-with-egypt/#commentsWed, 03 Apr 2013 21:21:31 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=252945Over the weekend, Egyptian political satirist and television host Bassem Youssef was interrogated by Egyptian authorities after he was charged with “disrupting public order” for riffing on President Mohammad Morsi and Islam. Egypt arrested. Morsi’s regime has been extra-sensitive about this type of media attention, and on Monday, Jon Stewart opened up his own show with a segment about the recent troubles of his Eyptian counterpart:

The U.S. embassy in Cairo has a reputation for being active on the Twitters, and tweeted out a link to Stewart’s segment — presumably because it was pretty funny and called Morsi out for his less-than-robust commitment to free speech.

A little after noon ET, the page was back up; Foreign Policy reports that the decision to temporarily delete it was made by U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson in order to give them time to “put new procedures in place,” and that the State Department quickly urged them “to put the page back up, lest it appear that the United States is caving to the online pressure,” …but the oh-so-offensive Jon Stewart tweet is gone.

Nuland said at Wednesday’s briefing that the Embassy viewed the tweet as a mistake but she defended the State Department’s criticism of the Egyptian government on the issue.

“We’ve had some glitches with the way the twitter feed has been managed. This is regrettably not the first time. Embassy Cairo is looking at how to manage these glitches,” she said. “They came to the conclusion that the decision to tweet it in the first place didn’t accord with post management of the site.”

Because we wouldn’t want to be controversial in defending our human-rights values, would we?

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/03/u-s-embassy-in-cairo-restores-their-twitter-feed-after-jon-stewart-snafu-with-egypt/feed/15252945The politics of the Easter Egg rollhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/31/the-politics-of-the-easter-egg-roll/
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/31/the-politics-of-the-easter-egg-roll/#commentsSun, 31 Mar 2013 16:01:09 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=252405I’ve never really thought of Easter as being the sort of day when one looks for “star studded events” unless you’ve got a special guest delivering the sermon at church. But that’s never managed to stop the denizens of Washington DC from glamming and hamming it up. This year’s annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn is no exception.

The White House put out the talent line-up and the roster of celebrity attendees for the 135th annual Easter Egg Roll to be held Monday. The announcement came Friday, the day President Obama talked about Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection in his Easter message.

Governor Chris Christie and First Lady Mary Pat Christie welcomed 300 special needs children, ages 3 – 6 years old, and their families to Drumthwacket for the annual Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 16. Overall, approximately 600 participants attended the festivities in the gardens of the Governor’s official residence.

So the President has an Easter egg “roll” and Christie has an Easter egg “hunt.” Makes sense, I suppose. After all, hunting… guns… you know the drill.

I got to wondering how long this has been going on, and was somewhat surprised to see how far back it goes. They were already doing it in the mid 1800s, but the event was held on the Capitol grounds, rising to a peak of activity under President Andrew Johnson. Unfortunately, the little tykes were creating a bit of a mess, so Congress reacted in precisely the way you’d expect them to.

The egg roll activity of 1876 took its toll on the grounds, a fact that did not go unnoticed by members of Congress. With an already inadequate budget to complete the landscaping and maintenance of the grounds, Congress passed a law forbidding the Capitol grounds to be used as a children’s playground. The law was to be enforced in 1877. But that Easter Monday rain poured down, canceling any outdoor activities sending the egg rollers indoors to play.

On Easter Saturday of 1878, a small announcement in the local press informed the egg rollers the new law would be enforced. President Rutherford B. Hayes, taking his daily walk, was approached by a number of young egg rollers who inquired about the possibilities of egg rolling on the South Lawn of the White House. Unfamiliar with the activity [his first Easter Monday as President had been rained out the proceeding year] President Hayes, upon his return to the White House, inquired amongst his staff who briefed the attentive Chief Executive. The smiling President issued an official order that should any children arrive to egg roll on Easter Monday, they were to be allowed to do so. That Monday, as children were being turned away from the Capitol grounds, word quickly spread to go to the White House!

President Hayes and his wife, Lucy, officially opened the White House grounds to the children of the area for egg rolling that Easter Monday. Successive Presidents continued the tradition, and the event has been held on the South Lawn ever since.

So Congress actually took time out of their busy day to pass a law banning children from having an Easter egg roll on the capitol grounds. And to think… they did this long before their approval ratings headed toward 12%.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/31/the-politics-of-the-easter-egg-roll/feed/37252405Video: Shotgun Joe rides againhttp://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/03/video-shotgun-joe-rides-again/
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/03/video-shotgun-joe-rides-again/#commentsSun, 03 Mar 2013 22:01:25 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=247500Once again we seem to have spent far too much of the weekend debating heady and often depressing subjects, so it’s only fair to include something for a bit of fun. And when you’re looking for fun, there is no better place to turn than Shotgun Joe Biden! There’s a new entry in the collection of Vice President Biden’s advice for young ladies seeking some personal protection, and it is brought to us in the form of one of the most entertaining columns you’ll read all week by long time Hot Air friend, Andrew Malcom of Investors.com.

Lots of people like Joe Biden. He’s the zany uncle, the benign bumbler who shows up at Thanksgiving dinner and takes over the mealtime conversation with confusing stories, most of them very familiar and not all of them off-color.

Joe is from Delaware, a place that’s famous for absolutely nothing and arouses no feelings whatsoever. Joe likes to ride the choo-choo trains. He talks a lot, which can be good in politics. He often talks before thinking about the words coming out of his mouth, which can not be good in politics.

Obama keeps the harmless guy around because, in comparison, Biden makes the president look smooth and smart. As long as no one gets to thinking, “God Almighty, that garrulous goof is one heartbeat away from becoming commander-in-chief.”

Hey, guys, what does this red button do?

That goes on for quite some time and really had me chuckling the whole way. But on the second page, we are introduced to a new video which comes in response to Joe’s advice for women to buy a shotgun for self defense.

Anyway, Joe’s idea is that women should ensure they get attacked at home. There, they can keep a shotgun. If a woman hears some funny noise, she should get out that heavy, powerful weapon. She should go out on the porch and simply fire off a couple of shotgun blasts into something. That’ll take care of things.

The VP had nothing to say about what to do in the event of return fire. And he was vague on where exactly to fire the shotgun blasts. He seemed to indicate up in the air. That’s actually illegal in many places because, gravity being what it is, that hot lead has a need to come down at some point. And not always in woods.

Then, wise Joe thoughtfully added, as a woman you really don’t want to fool around with a military-type AR-15. His party doesn’t like those weapons. And Biden knows they’re hard to handle and hard to aim, especially for a woman because, well, you know.

So, watch this video below and see how things worked out for a number of women trying out Joe’s shotgun advice. And then one of them with an AR-15.

We’re going to get to the video for you in a moment, but I really need to preface it with a few notes. First of all, the video depicts a number of women attempting to fire shotguns and being knocked down, spun around, losing control of their weapon and other malfunctions as a result of the kick from the shotgun. They are almost all handling the weapons in an improper fashion. It should be pointed out that many, many women are skilled, successful shotgun owners who can handle these weapons just fine and the video makes light of that idea. Also, I can relate a bit to the problems these ladies encounter. When I was about 13 years old I insisted to my father and my Uncle Bernie that I be allowed to fire my dad’s 12 gauge instead of just my .22 long rifle. Having a rather inappropriate sense of humor, they agreed, instructing me to stand with my heels close together, leaning slightly backward “to better sight down the barrel” and holding the butt of the stock a couple of inches away from my shoulder. My entire right side was purple for a week. (Thanks, Dad.)

Second, while the video depicts these things in a comical way, many of these situations are very unsafe. Nobody should be firing a weapon without proper training and safety procedures in place. Still, with all of that said, there is an element of slapstick humor to the piece and the way they weave Joe Biden into it makes it pretty funny. Enjoy.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/03/video-shotgun-joe-rides-again/feed/49247500Obligatory: A bad lip reading of the first presidential debatehttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/09/obligatory-a-bad-lip-reading-of-the-first-presidential-debate/
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/09/obligatory-a-bad-lip-reading-of-the-first-presidential-debate/#commentsWed, 10 Oct 2012 00:01:43 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=222998To cleanse the palate, as Allahpundit says — and actually, in my opinion, the BadLipReading folks provide an obviously ridiculous but weirdly apt summary of how thing went down. Even the dubbed-over-with-nonsense version of Mitt Romney sounds more confident and in-command than a somewhat faltering President Obama, and all of the passionate-versus-defeated body language is still there (the faux-Obama even falls asleep, and I don’t think everybody is quite convinced that the real-Obama didn’t actually do the same thing). The best part may be the “I’m here to guide you through your meditation” take on Jim Lehrer, and as Mitt Romney concludes, “It’s party time, chumps” — ain’t it the truth?

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/09/obligatory-a-bad-lip-reading-of-the-first-presidential-debate/feed/43222998“America doesn’t need a birther-in-chief”? Are we really going there?http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/25/america-doesnt-need-a-birther-in-chief-are-we-really-going-there/
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/25/america-doesnt-need-a-birther-in-chief-are-we-really-going-there/#commentsSat, 25 Aug 2012 18:31:32 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=214571Of course we knew that the Obama campaign was going to release a statement of faux outrageous outrage after Romney’s birth-certificate joke on Friday morning, and of course all the libs will be up in arms on the news for the rest of the weekend, taking this as another chance to lament and bemoan the lack of moderation in a party now dominated by crazy right-wing extremists — oh, the humanity! But nobody seriously thinks that Romney was “directly enlisting” himself in the birther movement with the now-infamous one-liner, do they? And I didn’t think the Obama campaign would seize on this too much as an actual issue, lest they end up looking silly themselves.

But I was wrong. So wrong.

“Holding out hope Romney had a vision for the middle class? THINK AGAIN.”

Le sigh. I underestimated their desperation for distractions and their commitment to their denigrate-Romney’s-character-at-all-costs modus operandi, no matter how unserious and lame the charge. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/25/america-doesnt-need-a-birther-in-chief-are-we-really-going-there/feed/172214571Video: Crowder, Loesch rap at CPAChttp://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/11/video-crowder-loesch-rap-at-cpac/
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/11/video-crowder-loesch-rap-at-cpac/#commentsSat, 11 Feb 2012 13:00:50 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=179500Yesterday, John Hawkins and TeaParty.net staged the first ever CPAC Blogger Awards, which John organized and emceed in part. The awards recognized a number of excellent bloggers, such as Pamela Gellar, Jim Hoft, Emily Zanotti (to whom I presented the award), Glenn Reynolds (twice, with one award accepted on his behalf by comedienne Victoria Jackson), and our own blog, which was selected as Best Blog Overall. During the event, we got a live performance of “Mr. America” by the Powdered Zombies, who are better known as Steven Crowder and Chris Loesch (whose wife Dana makes an appearance in the video). They performed along with their new video of this rap song, in which we find out what our founding fathers would think of the US now … if they were still alive … and if they became rappers. It’s a well-produced video, and the Powdered Zombies got a lot of laughs out of it from the bloggers:

Thanks to a number of technical difficulties, we have quite a backlog of videos to post of interviews conducted over the last couple of days. Later, I’ll have an exclusive interview with Rick Santorum which Tina and I conducted jointly, as well as a great interview with Hollywood conservative Allen Covert, who has a very cool project about teaching American values to children — and whom, I might add, is just a terrific guy. (I’ll have more on that later.) I will also post interviews with Todd Starnes, Jackie Walorski, Rep. Mike Pompeo, and more, and I will be interviewing more people as we go along.

If you’re following along on the CPAC.org website, I will be on stage at 1 pm ET for a panel on how the new media needs to transform and build itself into a full alternative to the MSM. Jim Geraghty and Erik Telford will be on my panel, and Floyd Brown will be the moderator, so it should be a lot of fun.